SMS length and function: A comparative study of 13- to 18-year-old girls and boys

International audience

Objective. – The use of SMS messaging has grown rapidly over the past decade. Up until now, most Frenchlanguage studies have focused on one predominant SMS characteristic: spelling. The goal of this paper is to extend previous research topics so as to include new dependant variables such as message length and message functions.Method. – A corpus of 1131 SMSes produced in a natural environment by teenage French speakers was analysed. This group was made up of teenage girls and boys between the ages of 13 and 18 who reported frequent usage of SMS messaging over an extended period of time. Did these SMS exchanges confirm stereotypes regarding gender differences? That is, did girls produce longer messages than boys? Did girls send more messages with a relational function than with an informational function, while boys did just the opposite?Results. – The results led to a mitigation of these stereotypes. Girls did produce longer messages than boys. However, this only occurred when the girls were 15–16 years of age and had a long-standing and frequent practice of SMS usage. Regarding functions, girls’ messages more often had a relational function than an informational one, but again, only in girls who were 15–16 years of age and had been SMSing frequently for a long period of time. In boys, it took until 17–18 years of age for the same result to appear. More than a gender difference, these results emphasized a discrepancy in the developmental curves of girls and boys, girls being more precocious than boys.